Wrestling With The Angels

The original Angels In The Outfield, circa 1952, predated the Anaheim Angels franchise by a decade. And that time, it was an orphanage moppet bringing in the divine comedians to get the mojo working for her hapless Pittsburgh Pirates.

Stealing a cute film's remade premise (as in, the Danny Glover hit of a few years ago) would not be the grandest theft with which the Angels were ever involved. For that matter, their theft of Nolan Ryan from the New York Mets may not be the grandest theft they have ever gotten away with. The Angels are getting closer to pulling the heist of their lives, and maybe the American League's.

They led the American League West by a game until Monday night's 4-3 loss. If they hold on and get away with lifting the division, then loot the pennant and plunder the World Series, whom would these Angels surprise?

Only the entire southern California population, half the southern Cal sports press, most of organised baseball, maybe seven-eighths of the national sports media, and perhaps all the population who haven't gone a-whoring after strange football gods.

We have hit the season-ending fortnight stretch and the Angels have not dried up and blown away. Well, let us amend that. They spent Sunday night blowing away the fat, dumb, and none too thrilled Texas Rangers, jumping and thumping Kenny Rogers for five in the first inning, before a lineup move brought about by medical rest needs prodded manager Mike Scioscia to look like Casey Stengel resurrected as Gil Hodges.

On Saturday night, Garret Anderson strained himself into a hamstring cramp beating out the infield hit after Scott Spezio singled home Adam Kennedy and Darin Erstad. Superpest David Eckstein reported Sunday with a hip strain. So Scioscia named Erstad his leadoff man for Sunday and batted Troy Glaus, who usually bats in the middle of the pack, in the number two spot - where Erstad usually earns his keep.

Glaus's mates needled the usually power-hitting third baseman about doing "the little things" to move the runners. "That," said the customarily unobstrusive Glaus, "wasn't going to happen."

Wasn't it ever. Not this Sunday. Not with these Angels, the Polyanna team who play baseball as though the Gas House Gang had taught the game to the 1969 Mets.

Glaus dropped in to see what condition Rogers' condition was in to lead off the Anaheim fifth. Then he dropped Rogers with a belt over the center field fence. Seventh inning, Jay Powell pitching, one mate on...bing! Two-run blast to left. Eighth inning, Juan Alvarez pitching, Angels up 9-4, two mates on the pads...bing! Three-run bomb to left center. Just doing the little things to move the runners, ladies and gentlemen.

And Ramon Ortiz just did the little things on the mound while shaking off flu-like symptoms and getting a five-run first inning stake that left him able to dare A-Rod, what's left of I-Rod, and company swing away. The Rangers pried four runs out of the wiry righthander before he handed off to the Angels' bulls. Final: 13-4.

Good enough to put the Angels back into first place by a full game for a day. And guess whom the Angels began a four-game set against Monday?

Hint: In last week's four game set between the two in Anaheim, the Angels lost the first game and then pried three straight wins out of them.

Second hint: That loss broke a ten-game Angels winning streak, but those wins started a six-game winning streak, and against a club whose league-record 20-game winning streak was only slightly more electrifying than the Angels' grind-and-gun 16 of 17 entering Monday.

And here the Oakland Athletics waited for them, nudged out of first for a day by a team achieving their best-ever season record to date after starting the season with a franchise-worst 6-14 spell.

The A's have defied the Bud Selig party line at least as profoundly as the Minnesota Twins, the aberration which just clinched the American League Central. The A's have less bucks, too, but they have a little more brains in the front office and a lot tougher division to conquer. (One thing the A's lack: the Twins' owner, whose revenue shares disappeared into his pockets while his club mostly went down the decade dumper, which is why a lot of owners were fool enough to let Selig threaten to kill the Twins right after last year's World Series, rather than push him to wait awhile and let a healing country savour the Series' greatness.)

And boy have the A's made fools out of the competitive balance nonsense makers who thought the only way for the A's to overcome the defections of Jason Who, Johnny What, and Izzy I Don't Know was More Revenue Sharing! Luxury Tax! Smack Those Greedhead Free Agents Down!

(Reality check: Yes, the players conceded quite a lot in the welfare department. Yes, revenue sharing above and beyond dividing nationally-derived and applied baseball revenues, as opposed to individuated franchise revenues, is welfare. Yes, the luxury tax is nothing better than a punitive behaviour modification tax, aimed at punishing owners who know how to operate soundly, invest prudently, and market and promote reasonably for their actual and prospective markets. But, yes, believe it or not, there is still no requirement that those qualifying for revenue shares spend them on their teams' baseball matters exclusively. And if you think the players will not be watching that as carefully as they watch whose pitches get hit for which hits in which clutches, move to the left to find the line for buying land to build a spanking new ballpark - on the lost continent of Atlantis.)

But the A's are not exactly strangers to the American League pennant. They have won a few in their last hundred years. Won a few World Series, too, including one in the last fifteen. The Angels have not even won the pennant over their entire existence. A couple of division titles but never the ticket to the Big Dance. They, sirs and ladies, are overdue.

1979: Nolan Ryan and Frank Tanana could not pitch the Halos past the Baltimore Orioles. A lineup of guts and guns could not shoot down the Birds. The Orioles got the honour of getting outplayed by the Fam-A-Lee Pirates.

1982: The Angels finally win the West. They even got to within one win of nailing the pennant. Manager Gene Mauch suffered a case of the same malady which cost his 1964 Phillies a National League pennant they were running away with, overmanaging, plus overworking his two top arms (Tommy John and Bruce Kison). The Angels came away with the first pennant blown after a 2-0 lead in a League Championship Series.

1986: Mauch brought back the season before, practically on begging bended knee. (He had resigned after 1982 and soon enough suffered the heartbreak of his wife's death.) He remodeled an Angels club grown flush of dollar and flushed of brains and heart and brought them home second behind the Royals in '85. Then they won the West in '86. One strike away from a three-sweep pennant. Up stepped Dave Henderson, over the fence went Donnie Moore's best forkball to break a five-all tie in the top of the ninth, down went the Angels in the bottom of the ninth, and on went the Angels toward their second blown pennant after leading an LCS 2-0. (And on went the Boston Red Sox, to have done to them by the Mets in Game Six what they'd done to the Angels.)

1995: The Angels and the Seattle Mariners end the season in a dead heat. And Randy Johnson ends the Angels' postseason hope with a liberal pounding of live heat.

That was then; this is now. Now the Mariners - who had been the preseason favourite to repeat their division control and conquest are fading fast. (Believe it or not: The Rangers have a better record since the All-Star break.) It's the Angels' or the A's' race to lose now. And the Angels are bent on making it anything but boring.

They have a crowd full of infield pests and outfield gazelles who thrive on making the 1969 Mets - baseball's version of the Flying Wallendas - resemble a flight of DC-3s. Those pests and gazelles are rather adept with the bats, too. Their starting rotation is better than serviceable, with a pair of live rookies (Mickey Callahan, John Lackey) making a strikingly mature showing in the heat of a pennant race, while the bullpen gives up runs about as readily as Osama bin Laden gives up on terrorism.

Not that it looks like anything close to a done deal by any means. Glaus did his best to make it look that way, when he abused Oakland reclamation project Cory Lidle for a first-inning three-run homer to give him four in four straight at-bats. But the A's closed a 3-1 hole despite wasting several scoring chances, while the Angels' usually surehanded leather hardened for once and gutty rookie Lackey pitching himself in and out of trouble for all but one of his five innings' work.

Then, it was 3-3 in the bottom of the seventh, Ray Durham ruining Angel reliever Scott Schoenweis's hold with a leadoff bomb. Then, it was the Angels wasting a couple of chances to break the tie. Then, it was Durham singling off Al Levine with one out in the bottom of the ninth. Then, it was David Justice pushing Durham to second with a little help from Adam Kennedy, whose bobble helped Justice beat out a hard grounder.

Then, it was Miguel Tejada, standing in with the Oakland crowd chanting "M-V-P! M-V-P!" from the moment he set himself to hit despite his having stranded six runners across the earlier run of the game. Then, it was Tejada ripping a clean base hit toward left center. Then, it was Durham gunning home well ahead of a desperation but offline throw in from the outfield.

Before you start looking for the alleged spirits wafting up in indignation from the burial ground on which their home ballpark is said to sit, look at it this way: All they lost Monday night was sole possession of first place. They lost the first of the four-set against these A's last week in Anaheim, too. These are not your father's Angels. They're not even your grandfather's Angels.

And there has to be something utterly likeable about the thought of Mike Scioscia, when it's all over and the Angels sit on top of the world, hearing some reporter ask him to explain all this, and finding himself at long last lost for any of his usual understated talking points. Like Gil Hodges at the end of the 1969 surreality, he'll just flash a subtle smile, then spread his upturned palms apart and shrug.

That is precisely what they used to say about Angel pennant hopes come mid-September, before they got stolen in lesser heists than the one the Angels still have an amazing chance of getting away with.

No disrespect meant to the Twins. But it would be lovely to see the game-gamer-gamest Angels get themselves some love this season. Even the Philadelphia Phillies didn't need to exist fifty years before winning their first pennant...

It'll be interesting to see who wins the barnburner race in the AL West, but my A's Big Three staff will carry them thru to the pennant, IMHO.

Impressive run by the Angels, though...MUD

As an Athletics supporter, I was thrilled with Tejada's walk-off game winner in the bottom of the ninth against the Angels last night. This Division race (in the best division in baseball) may go right down to the last game. And even the loser is going to the playoffs as a "wild card".

I don't care who, but someone had better knock the Yankees out early.

Yanks pitching has become suspect...look for them to sign Greg Maddox in the off-season, but it won't help them this year.

FReegards...MUD

Nice post, BluesDuke. The Angels have been underachieving for years, and they still have a lot of history to overcome before they can shrug off the curse of Eli Grba. Or for that matter, Mark Clear or Rob Wilfong. Anybody else remember "Chalk erased on a double play?" Logically, the Yankees should not make it out of the AL playoffs this year. Their pitching is mediocre and their defense is downright awful, and I thought those two factors are supposed to be everything. In addition, they are at or near the top in striking out, hitting into double plays and leaving men on base. If they win it all this year, it will be in the face of some of the most venerated baseball cliches.

Great article, as an Angels' fan who saw his first baseball game as a small child when the Angels played at Wrigley Field, I can not be more excited. I shuddered last week when Jared Washburn was accused of a crime and I had visions of Tony Phillips. After a horrible start, these Angles have shown their resilience. They have overcome several injuries this season. If they can stay away from bug bites a la Wally Joyner and if Sioscia can manage his pitching staff better than Mauch, this could get exciting.

Another gem, BD!

The channel flipping I did last night between the A's/Angels and Dodgers/Giants games was too tiresome........I'm bringing out the 19 inch from the bedroom and setting it right next to the 40" in the living room for at least the next 3 nights.

The hardest nut for the Yankees to get past is their pitching - too many small injuries obstructing it this season, and Mariano Rivera's makes him a little too vulnerable. Since they customarily step it up in the postseason, I can't rule them out entirely but I can't necessarily see them getting past the full LCS, either.

Scioscia is a better handler of pitching than Gene Mauch was. Scioscia is also a smarter small-ball manager than Mauch. There used to be a cliche about Mauch's managing - "He manages for one run at a time and that's what he loses by...one run." This is anything but the truth about Scioscia's style. He seems to balance between a strictly small-ball manager and the kind that Casey Stengel had been in his better years with the Yankees: if you have an opening, push with all your might where you can. Sciosia is also a smarter handler of a bullpen than Mauch - who often as not managed as though he was afraid of his bullpen.

I'm bringing out the 19 inch from the bedroom and setting it right next to the 40" in the living room for at least the next 3 nights.

heheheheheheh...here's hoping your wife has a bottomless well of tolerance!

"I shuddered last week when Jared Washburn was accused of a crime and I had visions of Tony Phillips."

I became friends with Tony Phillips during the '87 and '88 seasons when he was with the A's. Then lost track of him when he became a Tiger. He ended his career with the A's in '98, when he broke his leg against Chicago. I knew he had a problem with drugs in the late '80's but overcame it. What incident are you referring to?

His game worn jersey hangs on my wall.

Tony Phillips was arrested in the heat of a pennant race in 1997 in a flea bag hotel trying to by crack cocaine from a undercover police officer. Soon after that Chuck Finley broke his wrist backing up home plate and catchter Todd Greene also broke his wrist the next day. The Angels folded like a cheap lawn chair.

The Phillips incident is mentioned in this article about Jared Washburn.

Oh, the Seen-ya Soy-cut!

You got the idea. ;) (Credit Where Due Dept.: New York World Telegram cartoonist Willard Mullin made the "Bums" appellation a fixture when, hearing his cab driver ask about how "doze Bums did taday" regarding the Dodgers of the late 1930s, he hit on the idea of representing the Dodgers in his sports cartoons by a caricature of Emmett Kelly, Jr., the legendary clown whose signature persona was a Skid Row derelict with a Buster Keatonish side. "Jints" was a diminutive probably invented by longtime New York Daily News sportswriter Dick Young.)

I think he meant Luis Polonia, who got into trouble with a 15-year-old girl a few years back.

The Polonia incident happened during 1989, when Polonia was a Yankee and Dallas (Mr. Subtle) Green was managing the club. Already under too much pressure from George Steinbrenner, who was still wired into his Baron von Steingrabber tyrant mode as the man who threw out the first manager of the season every season, Green - who savoured his reputation as Mr. Tough Guy but was more martinet than genuine tough guy despite his bellowing style - uttered this sickeningly unforgettable line about the Polonia case: I couldn't stop Luis from f@cking that broad! (It wasn't long after that that Green, who had become fed up with Steinbrenner's know-little-enough meddling, delivered his famous rip against "Manager George".)

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