Bronx, N.Y., Nov. 25, 2001 — It’s never a good day for a baseball fan when there’s no baseball news really, and you have to go searching for peripheral mentions.
My frustrated search first brought me to a reference one would usually find on the Obituary page. Bo Belinsky, who as a one-month-into-his-rookie-season right-hander threw a no-hitter against the Baltimore Orioles in 1962 for the (at the time) Los Angeles Angels, has passed away, a cancer victim at the age of 64. He lived the good life, dated starlets, married a Playboy playmate of the year.
I have shed tears about the tragedy that is Darryl Strawberry’s life and what could have been his career. I clucked sympathetically last March 30 when Doc Gooden retired, not with the 300 wins that was clearly his future, and not even the 200 he ached to reach in the latter years, but 194. Just as tragic seems the career of Bo Belinsky, who certainly “…burn[ed] out…(rather)…than to fade away — My! My!” 10-11 in 1962, he retired at 28-51.
In other news (in this case perhaps the financial or business pages should have been the source) John Henry does not want to own the Florida Marlins, where no one will help build a new stadium. And Jeffrey Loria considers an aged fan base with a football stadium infinitely preferable to the disinterested group he’s been trying to attract to an Olympics stadium in Montreal. All of this while ancient and filthy rich Carl Pohland wants out of baseball ownership in Minnesota altogether.
The Anaheim Angels have made the playoffs three times in 40 years of existence. They are owned by an entertainment conglomerate that has experienced almost nothing but success in every field into which it has entered (with those of us that are involved in magazine production only too familiar with the only other venture where they’ve had “mixed” results). They play in a division that many think was home to the two most talent-rich teams in baseball in 2001. The only team they finished ahead of will be more of a threat once they realize the gravity of their pitching-related decisions, and move to rectify that miscalculation. And there is a plan in the works to move the current World Series Champion Diamondbacks into their division too.
Mr. Henry has taken a look at the Angels and their Stadium with an eye toward purchasing them, but has reportedly (today’s paper again) decided to line up with the rest of the prospective buyers in Boston. The Angels have a perennial All Star at first base who could do no wrong in Boston but got hurt on the dugout steps in one of his first games in Anaheim. They produce impressive outfield talent, currently plying their skills elsewhere (Edmonds in St. Louis), struggling at home (Salmon), or perennial grist for the trade rumor mill (Erstad, Anderson), and a closer who swears that 2002 will be his last in this organization.
The picture is not all bleak, as they’ve served as the backdrop for four of Nolan Ryan’s no-hitters, and the last seven years of the Hall of Fame career of Rod Carew (though none of the seven years he led the league in batting). They’ve had one Cy Young (Dean Chance), one Rookie of the Year (Salmon) and an MVP (Don Baylor). A veteran jock we all know (named Joe Torre) cut his teeth announcing their games and Mike Witt threw them a perfect game. In their three playoffs tries they have lost to the Orioles team that eventually succumbed to the “We Are Family” Willie Stargell-led Pirates in 1979, and then to the Milwaukee Brewers in 1982 (with Reggie, Luis Tiant, Tommy John and Stan Bahnsen all playing for the Angels that year at one point or another).
But the playoffs of 1986 represent the moment that has haunted this team more than any other. The tragic events of their seven-game ALCS loss to the Red Sox have oft been repeated, how they had a 3-1 lead in games, and a 5-2 lead going to the ninth of game five, how Dave Henderson homered off Donnie Moore in a four-run rally, how the Angels scored in the ninth but lost in the 11th and never challenged thereafter. No one knows how big a part that failure played in Moore’s suicide three years later.
And yes, 1986 should ring a bell. The Red Sox turned Henderson’s heroics eventually into Billy Buckner’s infamy. Twenty-five ballplayers didn’t feel sorry for what happened at first base against the Mets in World Series Game Six. They didn’t need to hear about the Red Sox and the “curse.” I mean, really. How sorry can you be for a team that is “cursed” when they robbed your team of its only real chance to play in the last game of the year?
No one is really sure what will happen with contraction, if the owners can slip it past the union, whether or not the team that is disappeared via contraction along with Montreal will be Minnesota, or someone else, if and when it happens. And how all this will affect the musical-chairs, who will buy what team, latest management spin-the-bottle game is anyone’s guess too. But the fans in Boston seem to love a loser, and Wrigley’s ivy (and the Tribune Company’s coffers) in Chicago get greener all the time. How about it, Angels fans? Haven’t you had enough?
YANKEE BASEBALL!!!