Like I was sayin'... any wonder hardly anyone is posting about baseball?

\"These Septembers filled with nothing games have got to go\" (King Kaufman)

It hardly has to do with just this one issue. No one's posting about much of anything baseball-related. Not the seasons of Schilling and Johnson, not A-Rod, not Bonds, nothing.

A few observations ...

1. Yup, the Wild Card definitely spoils what would otherwise be a serious nailbiter of a division series.

2. It seems the guys aren't posting much of anything, not just about baseball, but sports in general. Not including the pick 'em threads, there are all of 14 posts about NFL's Week 2, and not a whole lot of posts about college ball either. Please don't tell me everyone's been converted over to soccer.

3. OK, so the AL West is kind of a moot point because both teams will make the postseason. But what could have been (I know, coulda woulda shoulda ... pffft) a very exciting Wild Card race has been limper than Rafael Palmeiro without his little blue pills because the Red Sox are LAME LAME LAME!!! How does a team with 2 20-game winners (I'm going to just assume Pedro wins one of his next two starts against the Orioles and White Sox), the best hitter in baseball (if Manny keeps it up, he'll win the batting title), one of the best 3-4-5's in baseball (Nomar, Manny, and Cliff Floyd), and three of the top four pitchers in ERA (Wakefield just qualified, and he's #4 behind Zito) S-U-C-K as much as the 2002 Red Sox??? OK, maybe they don't totally suck, but they haven't played anywhere nearly to the level they should. If they had, we might have a Wild Card race on our hands.

And don't forget, Seattle was right there with the A's and Angels until very recently.

Y'all should take a look at the profiles of the guys in the Clubhouse.

When Jim & Cyd were converting to the new format, I helped them cut-n-paste the profiles. Easily at least half of them didn't mention sports at all--they were in to hiking, camping, the outdoors etc. Fine activities, but not sports.

I also sense that a portion of the guys that post here are not in to team sports but more "gay" sports like skating and tennis, i.e. individual sports.

The Politics and Religion thread is hopping, and the Off Topic has some great stuff in it. While I may be a team sports fanatic, I sense that not a lot of the guys here are. They may like one sport because of their college days, but that's it.

And frankly, baseball is a dying thing, but that's for another thread.

If you like baseball, the A's/Angels race is NOT a dud. Both teams are playing great, exciting baseball. Doesn't matter if both are getting into the playoffs, this is what makes baseball worth watching.

Eric Chavez is taking over the A's. He's stepped up to be their new Giambi. Are you noticing? Barry Zito is one of the most fun personalities in sports ... and he's performing like a superstar. Nothing dud-like happening here.

David Eckstein has already taken over the Halos. It's his team ... thank God not Darin Erstad's. (Erstad's the man who ran Jimmy Edmonds out of Southern California, all the way to the Mississippi River. As a Cards fan, I say, thank you, Darin.) The Angels not only have the most wins in baseball, they are also uncommonly good looking.

Plus, with the Angels, IT COULD ALL UNRAVEL ANY SECOND. Baseball teams rarely escape their history. The Angels have a history: one foot on a patch of ice, the other on a banana peel. Disaster awaits at every turn. The tension. The tension. It's great TV.

If all's you care about is who ends up the world champs, then, yeah, it's a dud. If you like watching baseball at its best, the action's here.

Charlie said it. I wish that this entire A's/Angels series was on ESPN so I can savor every moment. The ones I have seen have been terrific entertainment, with leads changing sides more than once a game and the kind of small ball I just don't see in the Bronx.

But since I grew up an NL fan (Phillies), I'm not really aware of the history of the Angels. (The only exposure I had of the team was from The Naked Gun). They're cursed? Like "1918" cursed?? Could someone provide some of their foibles over the years?

And, yes, the Angels are a bunch of lookers; Eckstein, for one, is the cutest "little guy" since Chuck Knoblauch...

Of course the games in the series have been mostly terrific, but the missing element of One Team Goes Home for the Winter is utterly crucial for making it GREAT baseball, like the Braves-Giants race ('93?) where they both won over 100 games. Bring on eight 4-team divisions with no wild card -- who wants the next two expansion franchises? (A pipe dream for the present, I know...)

The guys on PTI were discussing this issue yesterday. One option they brought up was that the Wild Card team would get no home playoff games in a 5 game series. That might add a little juice. They also mentioned making the divisional series' Best of 7 rather than Best of 5 and giving the Wild Card only 2 home games. Either of these ideas seem plausible?

*Shudder* Expansion??? *Shudder* Contraction is more like it; get rid of the Expos, D Rays, Marlins and Brewers for a start.

FeverDog, here's a brief history of the Angels curse. The Urban Legend is that Anaheim Stadium was built on an Indian burial ground and the spirits of the dead warriors torment the Angels. Some add a "and Gene Autry was The Singing Cowboy" twist but that just makes it unbelievable!

It's things like collapsing in pennant races (1995 being the worst example--they had a 11 game lead over the Mariners in late August and squandered it), being ONE STRIKE away from making the World Series, having Dave Henderson hit a homer, losing the game and the series (The Horror, the horror....) and so on.

It's all the other things that make people think this is a cursed franchise: a handful of players dying in car accidents (including Mike Miley, who was supposed to have been an incredible SS), the team bus running off the road and tons of freak injuries. There's an excellent book by Ross Newham on the history of the franchise. It's a horror story, that's for sure.

Of course, the real reason the team is "cursed" is that they have had horrible management from the get-go. They could never decide on a steady course of action: one year it'd be "We're only a player away from the playoffs", the next it'd be "Hmmm...maybe we weren't, let's rebuild from the farm system". There were always power struggles between the Autry's and the GM's; the Autry's were the meddling sort. Idiots. They'd trade away great prospects that would flourish elsewhere for players that were 2 years past it--pitchers with sore arms were a specialty. *Sigh* It's almost too depressing to think about.

CITT, while it's true that Darin Erstud was the nominal "leader" of the Get Rid of Edmonds campaign, he was NOT alone in wanting it. Even when he was in the minor leagues, Edmonds drove his managers and teammates nuts with his manner of play: the seeming indifference to losing, the laughing & joking with the other team during losses etc. What really sealed him doom in Anaheim was that before his last season, he refused to have shoulder surgery. He had to have surgery during the season and his teammates were furious. Rightly or wrongly, he was perceived as Not A Team Player and I don't think many in the locker room mourned his leaving. At the time, it seemed like they gave him away, but Adam Kennedy has turned out to be a great pickup, hitting and fielding well, in addition to being cute as all get out.

I read something re: Mark McGwire and the Angels the other day. The Angels got a LOT of flack for not trading for him when he wanted to leave the A's. Mac wanted to move to Anaheim as his son lived in OC but he and his agent were not willing to negotiate a contract before the trade; they'd only do it AFTER his contract ran out and the Angels wouldn't go for it. It's understandable why the Angels didn't want to give up starting players for a guy who might have walked to free agency after only a season. We all know where he ended up and what happened there.......

[ September 19, 2002: Message edited by: Jim Allen ]

[quote]Originally posted by George_vikingfan:
The guys on PTI were discussing this issue yesterday. One option they brought up was that the Wild Card team would get no home playoff games in a 5 game series. That might add a little juice. They also mentioned making the divisional series' Best of 7 rather than Best of 5 and giving the Wild Card only 2 home games. Either of these ideas seem plausible?

---

The first idea is completely unacceptable. There's no way a team should ever have NO home playoff games in a series.

The second idea is only possible if they slash a number of games from the regular season. Or do you want to have 2 or 3 World Series games in November each year?

I should have added that I don't really like either idea. Having no home playoff games isn't fair to the fans who supported the team all season. Plus the owners would NEVER go for it. And the five game series makes each game even more important. It also provides more opportunity for upsets. And lastly, good God, the season is long enough. There is no need for more playoff games.

My idea would be to keep the wild card, but have a sort of qualifier added to it. To keep more mediocre teams from qualifying for postseason play, possibly to add incentive, only invoke the wild card if that team had more than say, 90 wins. Then the playoffs will go on as we've seen for the last 8 years. If no second place team has 90 wins or more, then no wild card will be represented. The playoffs would look like this, in my half-baked idea:

The division winner with the third best record in the league would play at the division winner with the second best record in the league. The division winner with the best record in the league would have a bye. The winner of the 3d vs. 2d series would then face the division winner with the best record in the league.

I think this way would keep the truly best teams in the postseason, and filter out the mediocrities that tend to get in with the wild card. This way, *very* few teams who win 95-100 games will not go unrewarded for their excellence during the season, and the teams that luck into the postseason with only 85-89 wins will stay out, as it should be.

FeverDog, as Jim partially detailed, the Angels team has been cursed more than any club except for the Red Sox (and they have Harry Frazee to blame for selling a certain ballplayer to NY but that's another story altogether)....getting back to the Halos, despite the fact that I've been an East Coast guy my entire life I've always had a strange but strong rooting interest in the Angels going back to the days of dual fireballers Frank Tanana and Nolan Ryan in their rotation (maybe due to the fact that they were always viewed as the perennial underdog and "loser" -- especially compared to the "mighty" Dodgers in SoCal)....while mismanagement is partially to blame (and no one understands that concept more than baseball fans here in Maryland during the past decade) what Anaheim fans have had to endure goes beyond just bad luck.

Dave Henderson's two-out, two-strike, ninth-inning home run off Angels closer Donnie Moore in the 1986 ALCS (that tragically led to his suicide a couple of years later) is the most overlooked "miracle" in sports history....I'm firmly convinced that were it not for the Red Sox/Bill Buckner fiasco that occurred two weeks later, Hendu's HR would be much more noteworthy but instead it is barely remembered except among the throng of loyal Angels supporters (who have tried to forget it for the past 16 years )....then when you add in the Angels having a 2 games to none lead (in a 5 game series) against the Brewers in the early 80s only to lose 3 straight along with blowing the double-digit lead to the Mariners in early September that was culminated in their single-game playoff annihilation at the Kingdome to determine the AL West champ when pitcher Mark Langston self-destructed in the late innings, it is no wonder Orange County baseball fans are prone to caution before getting too excited....when you factor in the tragic deaths of Lymon Bostock and Mike Miley early in their careers, the promising pitcher making a comeback (whose name escapes me but I believe he formerly pitched for Oakland) getting beaned with a batted ball in spring training while sitting in the dugout and ending his career (and nearly his life), and the team bus accident that hospitalized manager Buck Rogers for several weeks it seems like the "script" for this franchise was developed by the writers of "The Twilight Zone" (after all, they do play in Southern California).

Let's only hope this postseason brings different results led by the cutest SS in the game, David Eckstein, who just happens to be a damn good ballplayer to boot....and thank goodness they got rid of those dreadful "powder blue winged" uniforms they wore the past few seasons and turned the "Big A" back into a decent baseball stadium a couple of years ago after Georgia Frontiere and the Rams nearly destroyed an underrated ballpark with their "renovations" that were designed to accomodate football (for 8 home games a year vs 81? ) and expand seating capacity.

[ September 19, 2002: Message edited by: gamecock ]

[quote]FeverDog, as Jim partially detailed, the Angels team has been cursed more than any club except for the Red Sox (and they have Harry Frazee to blame for selling a certain ballplayer to NY but that's another story altogether)....

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Hello? Does anyone here remember a certain team inhabiting a certain old ballpark on the North Side of Chicago?

If you live in California, 2002 is anything but a dud.
Gawd, I've got TWO flavors of Fox SportsNet and ESPN1 and 2. Between them all, not a single one of these MEGA important games between western teams has gone untelevised.

And people here are really getting into both of the SoCal-NoCal rivalries. This is truly exciting for California baseball fans.

For all you east coasters bemoaning the wild card; might your disinterest derive from the fact that the west coast has locked you out of the wild card races?
I've looked at the standings - aside from NY and ATL, the rest of the eastern divisions suck out loud...really loud.

Were the eastern divisions close (with multiple top-shelf teams), I'd bet that the folks on the west coast would be talking about how horrible the wild card is.

[quote]Originally posted by cubsfan1982:

Hello? Does anyone here remember a certain team inhabiting a certain old ballpark on the North Side of Chicago?

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Well, CubsFan, your team DID win the World Series in 1907 AND 1908 -- you're not gonna hold them responsible for ONLY 94 years of futility, are ya? ....after all, the Angels have NEVER even BEEN to a World Series (thanks to Dave Henderson and Paul Molitor in the '86 and '82 ALCS) -- yeah, I know, the Halos have only been in existence since 1961 but they're at least entitled to participate in the Fall Classic once, aren't they?

Even though that magic number remains stuck at one, we all know the Angels are going to the play-offs. As the Wild Card, meaning they get the Yankees in a five-game series. But two losses in a row to the dead dead dead Seattle Mariners? The collars are getting a little tighter. And the Gene Mauch flashbacks are getting a little brighter. Just another September in Orange County, I guess.

Nice to see the Mariners salvage some pride this weekend.

[quote]Originally posted by Charlie in the Trees:

Nice to see the Mariners salvage some pride this weekend.

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The M's were going down fighting before letting the Angels claim their victory for a playoff spot at Safeco Field! I never thought I'd say it, but I'm cheering for the Rangers to sweep the Halos down in Texas. Could it be that I still hold onto a glimmer of hope for the M's?

Angels in 4 over NY.
Oakland in 5 over Minnesota.

The ALCS will be a thriller!

[quote]Originally posted by AU Tiger in LA:
For all you east coasters bemoaning the wild card; might your disinterest derive from the fact that the west coast has locked you out of the wild card races?
I've looked at the standings - aside from NY and ATL, the rest of the eastern divisions suck out loud...really loud.

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I don't think there's disinterest on the East Coast. Just the opposite, actually. The races have been intriguing, partly because we can only read about them. The problem is most folks here just can't stay up late enough to actually see the games. A lot of the games are running past 1:00 AM, when the majority of us are snoring away. It seems to me this is another unanticipated consequence of the unbalanced schedule baseball has adopted......

Your point is well taken, MunsonMan. Perhaps Congress can adopt Pacific Standard Time as the National standard, and this whole little problem will be taken care of.

Yikes! I couldn't watch either Saturday or Sunday's games, so I rushed home from what I was doing to get the scores. My heart sank both nights. As long as the M's are still mathematically in it, I'm going to be nervous.

Of course, the Angels are in a pickle in the sense that they need the M's to beat the A's to hold on to their slim hope of winning the division. Best scenario: Angels win tomorrow (clinching at least the wildcard) and the M's sweep the A's.

So, MikeOC, you nervous too?

As much as I claim that I'm all done with the woefully underachieving Red Sox, I had a dream the other night that the Angels got swept by Texas and Seattle (not likely, but not entirely out of the realm of possibility either), Seattle lost two of three to the A's, the Red Sox swept the ChiSox and Tampa Bay (a distinct possibility), and then D-Lowe pitched a complete game shutout vs. the Halos in a one-game playoff. When I confessed my silly dream on a Red Sox message board, I got a great response: "Did you wake up all wet and sticky?"

Well....did you?

It took the Red Sox 15 innings last night to beat a Baltimore team that has now lost 26 out of 30. They gave up leads in the 9th and 14th. I wouldn't get my hopes up.

f**k. f**king hell. f**k f**k shit f**k damn it all. f**k.

I was accused of "doing a Lou Holtz" the other day re: the Angels (that is, downplaying their chance of getting a playoff spot). Apart from feeling insulted that I was connected with Notre Dame in any way, no matter how obscurely, I maintained that I wasn't. I'm really, really nervous now.

Some of the Angels key hitters have decided that now is a good time to go in to a slump. The pitching has been great, but the team is making mental errors that it had avoided for most of the season. Tonight, the Angels were down 2-1 and they had Scott Spezio on first base. Scoscia (Manager of the Year) called for a hit and run play; the hitter whiffed and Spezio was thrown out by Pudge. Um, why are you doing a h & r with Ivan behind the plate? A bit of overmanaging there, I'd say.

f**k.

Hey JA, Sorry to hear that you're f**king pissed-off! What's up with the Angels? It seems like they're trying to hand over a playoff spot to the M's. I was biting my nails to the quick tonight while focusing on both AL west games. It was surprising that the Angels didn't score many runs off the young Texas rookie. Also, I was as shocked as everyone to see the comeback by the M's in the 8th, to score 4 runs and take the lead. I'm just glad the A's took Zito out and brought in the bullpen.

Well, until tonight it was just a feeling of "Oh shit, here we go AGAIN". You know, the ghosts of 1982, 1986, 1995 (and others I'm too tired to list) rattling around my head etc.

But tonight--the cold, icy grip of fear grasped my heart. I'm going to be anxious all day at work tomorrow; as if drinking a billion cups of coffee per day don't make me yippy as it is!

It's not time to panic YET guys....I know the Angels have lost five games in a row but they still ONLY need just ONE more win to clinch that post-season berth (sometimes that last one is the toughest one to get -- just ask Alfonso Soriano, who was seemingly hitting HR's at will and has been stuck on 39 homers for about two weeks now as he tries to reach 40/40, but I won't go into that here since he plays for the hated Yanks)....getting back to the Halos, the ghost of Gene Mauch may be TRYING to come back to "life" but I say it's time for Anaheim to end this agony once and for all TONIGHT....if they somehow happen to lose their next five (and finish the season on a ten game skid and somehow incredibly miss the postseason altogether -- which I am CERTAIN will NOT happen) they ought to just fold the franchise immediately cause that would be solid proof that the "Big A" really is an ancient burial ground and that the franchise truly is cursed after all....Let's see Glaus, Anderson, Salmon, and that cutie Eckstein break out the champagne TODAY -- it's been on ice long enough!

Jim Allen

It's all good bud. Don't panick because this team will take at least one more game before the season is over. The Angels are all about drama and when they do clinch it will be that much more sweeter. You didn't think that any Angel team would ever make it easy on us fans did you?

No, the bastards!

OK, assuming they clinch a spot before I go to the Ed on Sunday (yipee! Fan Appreciation Day, I want that trip or truck or whatever), I don't think it's exactly the best way to head in to the playoffs. You know, your hitters forgetting how to hit etc.

Oddly enough, I think the Angels match up better against the Yankees than the A's.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. MikeOC, if they clinch tonight, I'll be thinking of you and sharing your sense of relief.

[quote]Originally posted by Joe in Philly:
It took the Red Sox 15 innings last night to beat a Baltimore team that has now lost 26 out of 30. I wouldn't get my hopes up.

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The Red Sox officially dropped out of contention tonight with a 7-2 loss to the White Sox. LP was Derek Lowe, now 21-9 for the season.

[quote]Originally posted by Jim Allen:
1995

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Go Rangers!

AAAAARRRRGGGGGHHHH!!!!!

GP43, you are a cruel, cruel, cruel man and I hope the Sonics go 0-82 and that the Lakers beat the snot out of 'em by 50 points each time they play each other and that Payton gets traded to Cleveland and.....

*SOB*

I can't f**king believe it. I sat here staring at the TV, just not wanting to process what I was seeing. You ever had that weird situation where you wake up suddenly and for a split-second you don't know if you're awake or dreaming? That's me now.

One win by the Angels, one loss by the M's. IS THAT TOO MUCH TOO ASK? IS IT???????

Apparently. This is a nightmare, truly. 1986 was devasting; 1995 was somehow inevitable and I didn't really like that group of players that much in any case. I LOVE this Angels team, lust mightily after Eckstein and Kennedy and.....

Razor blades. Check. Hot running water. Check. Cut along the vein, not across it. Check.

*Whimper* *Sob* *Moan*

[ September 25, 2002: Message edited by: Jim Allen ]

[quote]Originally posted by Joe in Philly:
It took the Red Sox 15 innings last night to beat a Baltimore team that has now lost 26 out of 30. They gave up leads in the 9th and 14th. I wouldn't get my hopes up.

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Oh, believe me, I didn't. Any Red Sox fan knows better than that. To be honest, I kind of expected a poor performance out of Lowe tonight. He gets all freaked out about stuff like winning 20 games (in his starts for a month or so before winning 20, he was noticeably off; he admitted that he was focusing on the number too much). In an interview yesterday, all he could talk about was winning the Cy Young and how he wanted to give it his all. So he freaked out again and had a bad (for him) outing. Still, Derek Lowe far exceeded any Sox fan's wildest expectations. I'm sure his experience this year will help him become a mentally tougher pitcher next season.

Not to hijack your thread, Halos fans. Believe me, in the immortal words of Monica Lewinsky's boyfriend, "I feel your pain." Now, their magic number is 2, right? Come on, even if they lose tomorrow night, they gotta win one out of three against the Mariners, right?? But like you said before, even if they do clinch, this is not exactly the kind of ball you want to be playing when heading into the playoffs. Still, it could be worse. You could be a Red Sox fan.

No, the Angels' magic number is one. They lead Seattle by 4 with 4 games left. If the Angels lose and Mariners win Thursday, it sets up the weekend series between the two starting Friday in Anaheim. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.......

Bill W may have looked like a genius when he was the first one here to call the AL West for the Oakland A's ... but he's looking like a mere mortal in starting this thread.

The Angels/Mariners race is most definitely not a dud.

The Red Sox were eliminated tonight (maybe quieting down those loud footsteps the Angels were hearing, as there's only one set of 'em left after tonight). So,since they lost on a bad outing by Derek Lowe ... does this kill Lowe's Cy Young chances? It looked like a dead heat between Lowe, Pedro and Zito going into this week, but having a bad outing that eliminates your team? If Lowe had been a clear front runner, obviously this shouldn't count against him. BUT: isn't it enough to break the tie against Lowe and leave it a two-man Cy Young race between Pedro and Zito?

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Jim Allen:
[QB]AAAAARRRRGGGGGHHHH!!!!!
One win by the Angels, one loss by the M's. IS THAT TOO MUCH TOO ASK? IS IT???????
Apparently. This is a nightmare, truly. 1986 was devasting; 1995 was somehow inevitable and I didn't really like that group of players that much in any case. I LOVE this Angels team, lust mightily after Eckstein and Kennedy and.....

Keep the faith Jim....this CANNOT happen again -- and somehow it WILL not....when the Halos clinch THURSDAY NIGHT all this agony that you are experiencing (along with millions of other LONG-suffering Angels fans) will actually seem humorous - it will, right??....look at it this way, we all know that EVERY team has at least one stretch throughout the season when they falter and after their disastrous April the Angels have played consistently strong for nearly five full months -- they are getting their "bad karma" out of the way before the postseason begins (look out Yankees cause come next week we'll be back to being world beaters again)....the only question I haven't figured out yet is why do the Halos ALWAYS wait until September to put their fans through this? -- btw, is there anything left in your medicine cabinet Jim?

Just keep telling yourself -- this CAN'T continue one more day and they WILL clinch on Thursday night....in the name of Brian Downing, Bobby Grich, Mark Langston and Gene Mauch they WILL pour the champagne in Arlington tomorrow night -- count on it!

[ September 25, 2002: Message edited by: gamecock ]

hey, hats off to the Angels! First of all, yes, they will clinch. Second, they're going to win close to a hundred games, despite a miserable 6-14 start. I'm pretty damn impressed that they managed to right the ship after a start like that.

OK, somebody in Red Sox Nation please tell me why the fig we gave up Eckstein? Yeah, yeah, I know, to make room on the 40-man roster when Merloni came back from Japan. As much as Jimy Williams was reviled in Red Sox Nation (rather unfairly, I thought), the man had an eye for talent. From the morass of mediocrity that is the Sox farm system, he spotted two keepers, Eckstein and Hillenbrand. Hillenbrand turns himself into an All Star, and Eckstein is the Halos' spark plug. Man oh man, some days, I just can't give Dan Duquette enough love.*

To Charlie's point about the Cy Young: Lowe can kiss it goodbye after tonight. He faltered a bit too much in the 2nd half, and even if that shouldn't weigh more heavily in the voters' minds, you know it will. I'm kind of hoping Pedro doesn't win it either. It pisses me off that he bagged out of his last start of the season (he would have been scheduled to start tonight's game; call-up Josh Hancock will go instead) long before the Sox were actually eliminated. Petey, I love ya pal, but you're paid zillions of dollars to pitch the whole season, not just whenever you feel like it. Has the guy been hanging out with Randy Moss or something?? Word around town is that the voters won't look too favorably on Pedro's quit-&-run routine either. Doesn't Zito have one more start scheduled? If he has a solid win, he'll have 23 for the season, plus he's the ace of the division winner (I know that shouldn't count for anything, but it probably will). I'd think that'd make Zito a shoo-in.

* Hear the rumor that Milwaukee's thinking of hiring Duquette as GM? Oh yeah, that'll turn that franchise around.

[quote] hey, hats off to the Angels! First of all, yes, they will clinch

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BoSox, How can you be so sure about that? The Impossible has happened over the last few days, and I think that if the Angels lose Thursday and the M's win, I think we have a good chance at the big sweep in SoCal! I'm not trying to get ahead of myself though. Here in Seattle, were taking it one game at a time. Whatever happens, I'll accept. If the M's don't make it, nobody can say that they didn't go out fighting. And one young player to watch for in the future is Willie Bloomquist. He has, believe it or not, held this team together the last few games, and gave the team a chance.

SeaMarfan - You should be proud how your team is playing inspired ball. What is unfolding right now is a little bit too erie for me as I heard the announcer shout out "magic dust from 1995" following the Cameron homerun last night. I will hope that the Angels take care of business this afternoon in Texas because I really would like to enjoy my weekend and not be stressed about the upcoming series between these two teams.

[quote]Is there anything left in your medicine cabinet Jim?

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Well, I've been clean and sober for 17 years, but the Angels are driving me to smoke dope and drink Mooseheads again. Seriously. I'm a huge fan of the English soccer team Everton. In soccer, the leagues are structured by divisions (England has 4). At the end of the season, the bottom 3 teams in Div. 1 go to Div. 2 and the top 3 teams in Div. 2 go to Div. 1 etc. Well, a few years ago, Everton was in danger of being relegated to the lower division. It took a goal with about 5 minutes to go in their last game to secure their top division status. I was a basket case waiting for the Internet report to come through. I never thought I'd get as wound up by a team again like I did then. I'm wound up.

I'm with MikeOC, I want this crap done today so I can have fun at the Angels-M's game on Sunday afternoon. I want to concentrate on winning some Fan Appreciation Day swag, not whether the Angels will blow it.

The game starts in an hour & 1/2--I'll keep the MLB page open on my work computer here so I can follow it.

BTW, isn't the Brewers GM job filled now? They cleaned house and brought in 2 new people, didn't they?

[ September 26, 2002: Message edited by: Jim Allen ]

.... somewhere Luis Sojo is dusting off ths shoes .....
if memory serves me right, when the Angels biff, the teams who they lost to did created moments (Buckner thru the wickets, and the M's-Yanks series in 95 ... didn't Sea come back from 2-0) .... so if the M's come back and take it, we know something magical (a sweep of the Yankees?) is on the horizon

Angels up 6-2, top of the 5th (at 1:36 pm PST).

Yikes. 4 more innings to go. Yikes.

10-3 Angels, going in to the bottom of the 7th. If they blow this one, they deserve to miss the playoffs.

Troy Percival: The Man Who Makes 6 Run Leads Interesting.

*SIGH* Well, they finally did it. [JA slumps back in chair, exhausted] Criminey. They shaved a year off of my life in the past 5 days. I'm bitter and I want that time back. Or an all-expense-paid trip to Europe on Fan Appreciation Day!

Big masculine hug to MikeOC. [Like a hooker on a street corner] So, Mike. Got any playoff tickets, Big Boy?



And, at least Tim Salmon has the albatross of "longest service in the majors without a playoff appearance" gone. He stayed with the Angels when he could have easily left (twice). Same with Anderson & Erstad. Good for them. This is a very likeable team.

I think they need to play hard against the M's this weekend, to go in to the playoffs on a high.

Finally!....I could say I NEVER had any doubt that the Angels would clinch the playoff berth but after the last six days, with a 3-game series coming up against the M's (I won't even mention the collapse of '95) combined with the fact that the franchise has only made the postseason three times in their 42 year history ('79, '82, and dare I bring up '86) and has NEVER WON A PLAYOFF SERIES would have left me with a few doubts had they not clinched it today.

Too bad I can't celebrate with the cutest SS in the AL David Eckstein (a slight nod to the Cubs Alex Gonzalez, but who's counting)....that champagne had been on ice long enough!

After their franchise worst 6-14 start (not even their first year expansion club in 1961 duplicated that feat) and finding themselves 10 1/2 games behind the M's, for Mike Scioscia to lead them to a club record 97 wins (AND COUNTING) including 46-27 since the All-Star break is remarkable!....I say give the AL Manager of the Year Award to BOTH Gardenhire and Scioscia -- they both did a far superior job to any manager in the NL, sans Frank Robinson.

As for your comment, Jim Allen, that the Angels "need to play hard against the M's this weekend, to go into the playoffs on a high" I couldn't agree more....give the Yanks some reason to be wary.

Enjoy your Fan Appreciation Day Experience Sunday, Jim....hope you will go home with something that will make all of us envious (or someone, like maybe David Eckstein? ).

[ September 26, 2002: Message edited by: gamecock ]

Hi MikeOC. Congratulatons, Your Angels made it, Go beat up the Yanks for us! All I can say is, my heart is broken I really thought the M's were going to the playoffs. I was driving over to Safeway when Cammie hit the two-run homer in the 8th to come from behind and take the lead for the second day in a row. Radio Announcer, Dave Niehaus was screaming at the top of his lungs while describing the game winning blast, and I literally started having anxiety attacks. Oh well, They may have struggled at times this season, but I'm still proud of this team.

[quote]Originally posted by Jim Allen:
BTW, isn't the Brewers GM job filled now? They cleaned house and brought in 2 new people, didn't they?

---

You're correct about the Brewers GM. They hired ex-Texas GM Doug Melvin for the job.

Congrats to the Angels. By the way, they're for sale!

Great timing for Disney, seriously. They've been talking to Donald Watkins, a businessman from the south, but DW seems oddly reluctant to open his books to scrutiny to see if he really has the dough he says he does. Sounds like a perfect owner to me! I can't wait for Disney to get the hell out of Anaheim. The only good they did there that I can see is remodel Anaheim Stadium after the Rams buggered off to St. Louis and hire Bill Stoneman. Hopefully, that awful Mattherhorn rock formation in CF at the Ed will go with them.

SMF, the M's kind of baffled me this year. I didn't expect them to repeat last year's regular season, but they basically had the same team back. Losing Edgar Martinez for a while didn't help and Boone's production fell, amongst other things but I kept waiting for them to go on an 18 for 20 streak or something like it and that never really happened. The A's and Angels had great streaks and that put them over the top. Maybe it's time for Lou to move on?

They showed the Angels lockerroom celebration and apart from the maddening thing of everyone keeping their shirt on, I nearly had a heart attack when they threw David Eckstein in the tub of ice--this is the Angels after all and it wouldn't have amazed me in the least if he broke his wrist or something when they did that.

Game 1 v. the Yankees on Tuesday.