7.30.00 ANAHEIM ANGELS vs CHICAGO WHITE SOX
For a while I'd been planning to make it out for this Angels-White Sox series just so I could get a handle on what these miracle Sox are all about. Watching a couple of the games at home though, I finally had to acknowledge something that I'd suspected for a while but couldn't quite bring myself to admit: namely, that the Angels have become one of the most exciting teams in baseball. The point was brought home Friday night, when Anaheim rallied from a 7-2 deficit in the sixth with a series of singles and sacrifices to tie the game with two men on, two out and Mo Vaughn coming to the plate. The sizable crowd was going apeshit, chanting “Mo! Mo! Mo!” and as the hefty lefty dug in, I could no longer suppress a smile. Vaughn took three straight balls and then lifted a pitch up and in straight over the right center field fence, and the Angels went on to win, 10-7. The next day the Angels would score a go-ahead run in the fifth and hold onto a tenuous 6-5 lead for the rest of the night against one of the most potent offenses in baseball. How can you not like that?
Then there's the whole Darin Erstad thing. As it turned out, there were only so many times I could see that guy make unbelievable plays in left and center while getting on base four times a night before my glib disdain turned into grudging admiration. Jim Rome has taken to calling him a “red-ass”—indeed, “The Reddest of the Red-Asses”—and while I haven't a clue as to the etymology of the term, and don't even really know what it means, there's something about it that captures perfectly Erstad's peculiar brand of self-flagellating asceticism and determination. The guy is just out of his mind—nothing can stop him.
So it was that when I went down to Edison Field tonight, it was actually kinda sorta with the hope that the Angels would win again and take three of four from their vaunted AL Central opponents. I mean, they were playing great ball. They'd won me over, just on sheer grit. Never in a million years would I have called myself a fan, but I had to give the guys some credit: they were playing their hearts out, and I wanted to see them do well. So there's the set-up.
I will say this: this was hands-down the most exciting game I've seen all year. It also taught me a lesson I'll not soon forget.
The White Sox jumped out to an early lead on Angels rookie starter Seth Etherton, with a Jose Valentin home run and a Chris Singleton RBI double in the first and second innings, respectively. The Angels countered with two runs of their own in the second and third innings, and tacked on another when Mo Vaughn doubled Erstad home with two out in the fifth.
Etherton managed to keep things quiet through an impressive six and two thirds innings, but was lifted after his 119th pitch with two outs and Frank Thomas at third. Mike Holtz then came on to strike out Jeff Abbott, ending the threat. I took advantage of the seventh inning stretch to move from my seat in right field down to the infield, and was rewarded with some up-close fireworks in the bottom of the frame. With Jim Parque still on the mound for the Sox, Adam Kennedy doubled to right and moved over to third on a Kevin Stocker bunt. Erstad singled for the third time in the game, but Kennedy was held at third.
So, with runners at the corners, one out and a one-run lead, Mike Scioscia reached into his bag of tricks and pulled out…a suicide squeeze! On the 0-1 pitch to Orlando Palmeiro, Kennedy came barreling home! Palmeiro calmly laid a bunt down the first base line, there was nothing the Sox could do but go to first, and I'd just witnessed the most thrilling sacrifice RBI I'd ever seen. An intentional walk to Vaughn was then followed by a blast to deep right field that earned Tim Salmon a triple and treated the crowd to the amusing spectacle of Mo Vaughn huffing and puffing all the way home from first base.
Understand too that the atmosphere was unlike anything I'd seen in Anaheim that didn't include at least 30,000 Dodger fans. The crowd was big, the folks were going nuts, the stupid Rally Monkey thing was almost becoming funny, and Magglio Ordoñez was taking some serious verbal abuse. So with the Angels up 6-2 going into the eighth, things were getting loose and fun. "Here come the Indians, Maggs!" cried the frat boys in right. That the Sox managed to put up two runs in the eighth caused no great alarm, no more so anyway than that vague shudder just before midnight caused among passengers of the Titanic.
Top of the ninth, still 6-2, bottom of the White Sox order due up. Enter Troy Percival. Herbert Perry pops up to right: one out. Abbott gets aboard on a single. Carlos Lee chases a fastball and strikes out: two out. The crowd on their feet. Percival works Greg Norton to three-and-two. One more strike and it's all over. The crowd can taste it, they want it so bad. Percival misses up: ball four, two men on, two out, crowd slightly deflated, trying to get back up as catcher Mark Johnson steps to the plate. Johnson takes a ball, fouls one off, and then drills the next pitch for a two-run double. The agonized collective groan that goes up is hilarious only because of its sheer inevitability. Percival gives up another double and another run to Ray Durham, and the Angels head to the dugout trailing 7-6. Unbelievable.
Even more unbelievable is that the Angels got the run back, as Garrett Anderson was able to get under a pitch from Keith Foulke just enough to score Scott Spezio from third. Could the Rally Monkey work his magic yet again? Well, no. Of course not. Al Levine came on for the Angels to work the tenth and promptly yielded four runs worth of singles to Thomas, Ordoñez, Abbott and Lee, and left it to Rule 5 guy Derrick Turnbow to mop things up. Coming back from 11-7 in the bottom of the tenth was just too much to ask from the shellshocked Angels, and three batters later all that was left was the long walk to the car, and the incessantly repeated propitiation: Thank God I'm not an Angels fan. Thank God I'm not an Angels fan.
FINAL SCORE: WHITE SOX 11, ANGELS 7
MEMORABLE HECKLE: “You hit like a girl!” shouted the frat boy after Frank Thomas fisted a bloop single over Mo Vaughn's head; realizing his omission, he then added, “A big girl!”
