July 28- California Angels

Most of time when I go into writing these posts I never do it with the thought in the back of my head saying, “Boy, the fans are really going to hate me for this one” until today. No, it won’t be that bad, but I guess that all really depends on perspective really.

I bought this cap on a random afternoon in New York City at the Lids nearest Madison Square Garden as the other Cave Dwellers and I had some free time in between games at the MLB Fan Cave. I think it had been about two or three days since I had last bought a cap so I made sure to go to the one place where I saw a lot of Cooperstown Collection models as to appease my fix. I had spotted this California Angels cap during one of my previous visits and declined on buying it as I couldn’t recall if the Angels had worn this cap with the red bill. For some reason something seemed off about it so I figure I would wait until I did more research. Instead, I picked up the Tampa Bay Devil Rays cap. Boy, was that dumb of me. Anyway, when I finally was able to get back to computer at the Fan Cave I looked up the dates and photos to make sure it was all up to snuff. Sure enough, it wasn't. The halo on this cap is red, unlike real one which featured a silver halo. That small difference aside, I sucked it up and held onto it. As far as the real one is concerned

 the Angels wore it for all of their home games from 1993-1996 during their last four years of being known as the California Angels as the name was changed to the Anaheim Angels in 1997. So, when the time came to get back to the Lids to retrieve my prize I took the N train to Union Square, blasting Journey’s “Separate Ways” and fist-pumping the entire time. Apparently New Yorkers are not too savvy on this practice as I was getting bewildered looks from the other passengers. Their loss. When I got to street level I was “rewarded” with an off-Broadway production of “Man Yelling at Woman Trying to Collect Change with a Kid Under Her Arm.” The reviews were mixed as West Coast critics are not used to this sort of abuse. I guess that happens when you don’t fist-pump to Journey. The next two blocks consisted of at least three people trying to pawn their rap/hip-hop CDs off to me and some guy yelling about the end of the world while wearing a pair of old school roller skates. The only thing I kept thinking in my head was something that fellow Cave Dweller Shaun Kippins had said a few days prior when one of our late night drivers asked how his day was going. To really understand the context of this you need to go back to the Atlanta Braves post from a few days ago, more specifically about the “Mr. Belvedere” section. When Shaun was asked that question, without skipping a beat he replied, “F---in’ New York” and sat quietly in the corner of the backseat until we got home. This became the official response to anything we ever saw “out of the ordinary” which in turn was merely everyday life in New York City. So yah, nothing really interesting happened when I actually purchased the cap, but everything that went on around me was certainly a gas.

Moving on… Of all the things that piss me off the most about this cap is that it has become iconic with the God awful remake/revision of the 1951 classic Angels in the Outfield (1994). 

I know a lot of you have seen it; Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s dad is a deadbeat who will only claim him out of foster care if the Angels win the pennant. So, JGL prays, gets a little help from Christopher Lloyd and some actual angels and the Danny Glover-run bunch of misfits featuring Tony Danza as their ace start winning games and eventually win the pennant thanks in part arm-flapping. Awful. In fact, some other notable faces got their big breaks in this movie.

This was actually shot AFTER they slept with the director.

  Oscar winner.

What makes this even more infuriating is that almost the entire movie was filmed at Oakland Alameda County Coliseum before Mt. Davis was erected, thus blocking out the Oakland hills in the back ground. 

So in a sense, Angels in the Outfield has become a historical relic for Oakland Athletics fans who want to see how beautiful the Coliseum used to be, all while sitting through American League Western Division propaganda.

The 1993-1996 timeframe in Angel history (in real life) was an especially trying time.  For most of the 1990s, the Angels played sub-.500 baseball, due in no small part to the confusion which reigned at the top. Gene Autry, though holding a controlling interest in the Angels, was in control in name only due to poor health in his advanced years. Autry’s wife Jackie, 20 years his junior, at times seemed to be the decision-maker, and at other times The Walt Disney Company, then a minority owner, seemed to be in charge. On May 21, 1992, an Angels' team bus traveling from New York to Baltimore crashed on the New Jersey Turnpike. Twelve members of the team ensemble were injured, including manager Buck Rodgers, who was hospitalized and missed the next three months of the season. In 1993, the Angels had a new spring training camp in Tempe, Arizona after 31 previous seasons in Palm Springs Stadium in Palm Springs, an idea Autry developed from the days when he stayed in his desert resort home. The Angels hoped a new facility would rejuvenate and improve the roster in the long run. The 1993 and 1994 seasons proved to be worse for the Angels than the previous three, particularly since the 1994 season ended in a baseball player strike that kept Angel fans waiting even longer for the team's fate to change. In 1995, the Angels suffered the worst collapse in franchise history. In first place in the AL West by 11 games in August, the team again lost key personnel (particularly shortstop Gary DiSarcina) and went on an extended slide during the final stretch run. By season's end, they were in a first-place tie with the surging Seattle Mariners, prompting a one-game playoff for the division title. The Mariners, managed by Lou Piniella and led by pitching ace Randy Johnson, laid a 9–1 drubbing on the Angels in the playoff game, clinching the AL West championship and forcing the Angels and their fans to endure yet another season of heartbreak and bitter disappointment.

The heartbreak of the collapse became even worse for loyal LA-area sports fans as the Los Angeles Rams decided to vacate “The Big A” and head to greener pastures in St. Louis, Missouri of all places in 1995 where they would eventually regroup and restructure their team and go on to win Super Bowl XXXIV against the Tennessee Titans. But, it all gets crazier. Disney effectively took control of the Angels in 1996, when it was able to gain enough support on the board to hire Tony Tavares as team president. Gene Autry, however, remained as chairman until his death in 1998. In 1999, Tavares hired Bill Stoneman as team general manager, under whose watch the Angels eventually won their first World Series Championship. Although Disney did not technically acquire a controlling interest in the team until after Autry's death, for all practical purposes it ran the team (the Autry loyalists on the board acted as "silent partners") through its Anaheim Sports subsidiary, which also owned the NHL's Mighty Ducks of Anaheim at the time. Disney, of course, had been a catalyst for the development of and population growth in Orange County, having opened its Disneyland theme park in Anaheim in 1955. Autry had named Walt Disney himself to the Angels' board in 1960; Mr. Disney served on the board until his death in 1966, and had been one of the proponents of the team's move to Orange County in 1965-66. In 1997, negotiations between the Angels and the city of Anaheim for renovation of Anaheim Stadium ended with an agreement to rehabilitate and downsize the facility into a baseball-only stadium once more. One condition of the stadium agreement was that the Angels could sell naming rights to the renovated stadium, so long as the new name was one "containing Anaheim therein." Anaheim Stadium was almost immediately renamed Edison International Field of Anaheim, though it was almost always referred to as simply Edison Field. Sportscasters also referred to the stadium at the time as The Big Ed, with a few others continuing to use the Big A nickname and, at times, Anaheim Stadium. Another condition of the stadium renovation agreement was that the team name itself be one "containing Anaheim therein." The emerging Disney ownership was itself in the process of renovating and upgrading its aging Disneyland park. Disney hoped to market Anaheim as a "destination city", much the same way it had done with Orlando, Florida, where Walt Disney World was located. Accordingly, the team changed its name again, to the Anaheim Angels on November 19, 1996. Thus, the California Angels were no more.

While the Angels did go on to win the World Series in 2002, the business end of getting to that place is by far one of the dumbest trails to victory in Major League history, and really the heart and soul of what made the Angels so unique was butchered repackaged and fed to us in the campiest way possible, the Disney way. Think I’m crazy for thinking this, click this link and I guarantee that ALL Angels fans will agree with me just based on the first photo.

#31- If there was one player who I would say deserved a World Series ring the most out of anybody who ever suited up for the Angels, besides Autry, it would have to be the longest-tenured pitcher to ever play for the Angels and my personal favorite to suit up for them, Chuck Finley. 

And a little Jim Fregosi love

Finley’s time with the Angels began in 1985 when he was selected with the fourth overall pick in the MLB secondary draft. He would only spend that season in the minors before making his Major League debut on May 29, 1986 against the Detroit Tigers in a one inning relief appearance in which he got shelled. Finley’s role as a starter didn’t develop until 1988 when he was thrown into the lions den for 31 games, compiling a 9-15 record with a 4.17 ERA and 111 strikeouts. His numbers weren’t exactly top tier; however, they were respectable for it being his first full season as a starter.

From 1989-1999 Finley dominated, with the exception of the 1992 season when he went 7-12, but still maintained a 3.96 ERA. Every other year, double-digits in wins and only one other losing season (besides 1992) in 1996 where he went 15-16 with a 4.16 ERA. Finley made four All-Star appearances during his time in California/Anaheim (1989, 1990, 1995 and 1996) and an additional one during his first year with the Cleveland Indians in 2000. Finely only registered for the AL Cy Young one year when he finished in seventh place with an 18-9 record, a 2.40 ERA and 177 strikeouts, which was way too low in comparison to the other names ahead of him on the list and their stats.

Of all the things that Finely is most known for (on the field), his deadly split-finger is one that tops the list, mostly because of the one stat that he holds that no other pitcher necessarily wants to break. Finely holds the record for most four-strikeout innings in Major League history with A.J. Burnett right on his heels. The split-finger is such a wild pitch to catch and it becomes even more erratic if it hits the ground before landing in the catcher’s glove. But, even with that, Finley still holds the majority of Angel pitching records. He is the Angels all-time career leader in wins (165), innings pitched (2,675), games started (379) and is second in strikeouts (2,151) behind some one trick pony named Nolan Ryan.

#44- If there was one moment that served as a broken record in the MLB Fan Cave out of Ricardo Marquez’s mouth, it would have to be his love of Chili Davis. Not only that, the one thing that he would always talk about, which ended up being a trivia question at the 2013 Fan Cave Top-30 trivia competition is his ERA: 0.00. Yes, Davis threw two innings of shutout baseball and even hit a dude in the process. All of this information I knew about before he brought it up, but I was also aware of the fact that Davis could hit the ball incredibly well, something that Ricardo seemed to forget at times. But, in keeping with his favorite story I humored him in asking if he knew who his only hit by pitch was against, thinking he might actually know it. He didn’t. This always bothered me about Ricardo way more than it should, but I think mostly because he held on to one stat about a guy and didn’t know much else about him despite saying that his is his favorite player. Stranger shit has happened, I guess. And the answer of who Davis plunked, your favorite and mine, Jose Canseco. But, where Ricardo stops, I take over.

One thing I will give credit for is that he does know that Davis is one of four guys to be born in Jamaica to play at the Major League level. In fact, he was the first. Drafted in the 11^th round of the 1977 draft by the San Francisco Giants, Davis made his MLB debut on April 10, 1981 and only played in eight games. In his first full season he hit .261 with 19 home runs and 76 RBI which was only good enough for a fourth place finish for Rookie of the Year. Yah, that talent pool was that good. Davis would go on to make two All-Star Game appearances with the Giants in 1984 and 1986 before he became a free agent at the end of the 1987 season. Without hesitation, the Angels picked him up and signed him to a deal.

From 1988-1990 Davis hit .268 with 55 home runs and 241 RBI, he would end up finishing 25^th for the AL MVP in 1989, but was granted free agency following the 1990 season where he was signed by the Minnesota Twins for the 1991 campaign which got him his first and only World Series ring as a player. He hit two home runs in that series against the Atlanta Braves. He also finished in 14^th place for the AL MVP that season with a .277 average, 29 dingers and 93 RBI. When Davis was once again given free agency at the end of the 1992 season the Angels swooped in again. 

Davis’ second run with the Angels ran the entire duration of this cap, 1993-1996. Even though the Angels were not exactly a success story, Davis made the most of his time in Anaheim. His best season came during the strike-shortened 1994 season in which he hit .311 with 26 home runs and 84 RBI despite only playing in 108 games. Davis made his only All-Star Game appearance with the Angels that year and finished 22^nd for the AL MVP. Davis hit .279, 156 homers and knocked in 618 runs in his career with the Angels and has been serving as the batting coach for the Athletics since 2012. Davis’ results as a coach have been swift and strong. The Athletics as a team have improved their batting average, going from .244 in 2011 to .238 in 2012 up to .254 in 2013. As for their home run production, 114 in 2011 to 195 in 2012 and 186 in 2013. Suffice to say, the man can teach hitting.

February 25- California Angels

I realize tonight that I’m stepping over into the Dark Side with my hat of choice, but I think it’s fair to say that you should all expect to see it happen quite a few more times throughout the year. What can I say? I have a lot of Angels hats. It’s not my fault. Take it up with the organization for changing things so often.

Back in July of 2011 I picked this guy up off of one of my favorite hat Web sites MickeysPlace.com. If you haven’t been, give it a look. It’s by far the premier place to pick up old school hats made to the exact specifications of when they were originally made. Since I was picking up at least one of every team I had my sights set on this particular California Angels hat for well over a decade. The Angels wore it from 1972-1992 (1990-1992 featured a wider version of the logo) and it is still hands down my favorite hat they ever wore. There’s something about the simplicity of the straight-barred “A” with the little halo about that makes it incredibly alluring. To be honest, I think a lot of it also has to do with the nostalgia that comes with those particular uniforms being worn in the “Naked Gun” as well.

Despite my obvious ties to the Oakland Athletics, I always had a soft spot for our division rivals. I blame a little bit of it on RBI Baseball on the old school Nintendo, but most of it has to do with two particular guys who are still, in my opinion, faces of the franchise; but I’ll get to that in a minute. The order I had placed with Mickey’s Place for this hat was the first one I had done. Unlike Lids, I couldn’t just walk back into the store and swap it for something else or return it. Mickey’s Place is a shop based out of Cooperstown, New York and sits about two blocks away from the National Baseball Hall of Fame. If the hat didn’t fit, I was pretty much screwed. On July 24th it arrived, along with a Chicago White Sox and a Houston Colt .45s hat, both of which I’ll be writing about in the future. I took the box into the bathroom and tried all of my acquisitions on. Thankfully they fit perfectly. Without much question I took them back in to my room, grabbed a silver Sharpie marker and tagged it immediately with two of my childhood heroes.

#21- If you recall my post from Salt Lake City Bees post on January 28, you’d know that I was raised in a Mormon household. My faith has always been prevalent in my life, but I don’t speak about it often unless Mormons somehow come up in a conversation. Throughout my life I was always teased about it. Even now I always seem to find myself around people who like to bash or poke fun at Mo-Mos. I will admit that what Trey Parker and Matt Stone have done in regard to the Mormons is quite hilarious, but I’ve never understood why people would hate on a group of people that love their God, love their family and love to share their faith. I’m not one to press my views or my faith on others, even though I feel like I’m doing that a little bit now, but I do like to openly discuss it with anyone who has any allusions about say: the planet thing, the magic underwear thing, the temple thing, etc. Anyway, there weren’t exactly a lot of people within the church to look up to as a kid, but there was one particular dude who made me proud to be Mormon, Wally Joyner. Wally really didn’t look like much of a baseball player when I go back and look at his photos and baseball cards, but man could that cat play ball.

He was drafted in the third round out of BYU in the 1983 amateur draft and made his Major League debut in 1986. That year he finished in second place in the Rookie of the Year voting, hitting .290/22/100, and getting edged by 12 points by some no-namer who goes by Jose Canseco. He finished eighth in the MVP vote and made his only All-Star game appearance of his career that season. He played a total of seven years with the Angels, the first six coming from 1986-1991 and the last in his final year in 2001. Throughout his Angels career he went .286/117/532, while his only trip to the World Series came with the 1998 San Diego Padres. He always looked like he could be Matthew Broderick’s brother, especially after the first time I saw “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.” What’s even funnier about that is that he actually did have a few roles in some Latter-Day Saint produced movies called “The Singles Ward,” “The RM,” “The Home Teachers” and “The Singles 2^nd Ward.” In both “Singles Ward” films he played Brother Angel, and coincidentally my uncles were in the first three films I listed. Wally Joyner, a great ball player and a heck of a Mormon.

#25- From 1989-1999 there was no one in Major League Baseball that I idolized or was inspired by more than Jim Abbott.

I feel bad for any young baseball fan who never had an opportunity to see him pitch for the mere sake that every time he stepped on the mound he defied the odds. For those who don’t know, Abbott was born without his right hand. Yah! But to put things into a better perspective of how talented he was throughout his career, he was the eighth overall pick in the 1988 amateur draft out of the University of Michigan. The dude is a legend right off the bat. Abbott played for the Angels from 1989-1992 and then again from 1995-1996. He played above average in his first two seasons, but his third season was clearly his best. In 1991 Abbott went 18-11 with a 2.89 ERA and 158 strikeouts. Need I remind you, dude pal only had one hand. He finished third in the Cy Young award voting, losing to Roger Clemens who had borderline equal numbers (18-10 and 2.62 ERA) with the exception of 241 strikeouts. But it was with the New York Yankees that Abbott will mostly be remembered. On September 13, 1993 Abbott tossed a no-hitter against the Cleveland Indians. As a 10-year-old I recall watching the game from start to finish, applauding in my living room after the final out was made.It's still one of the few games that I will go back and watch over-and-over on You Tube.

Only one time in my life was I ever lucky enough to see him pitch in person, which came in 1990 when my dad and stepmom scored a suite through their work (PG&E). Despite being seven-years-old with a wide assortment of food all around me, I made sure to stay focused every time it was the Angels' turn to play defense. Throughout my Little League days my friends and I would try to mimic Abbott’s glove transfer when we threw. To us, it was mind-boggling to watch him throw, put his glove on and snag the occasional ball shooting right back at him.

I know I have a bit of a “against the grain” attitude about a lot of things in my life, but I can’t help but be a big softy when I reflect back on Wally and Abbott. They were both upstanding human beings within the community, and both played the game a high level of grace. Kudos to you gentleman.

February 12- Lake Elsinore Storm

I’m slightly rusty on when this hat came out, but I know for a fact that it was after the 2000 season. The reason for my confusion is that the only difference from the original hat and this one is that the bill is red on the original. To clarify even more; there’s a particular Web site that I sue from time-to-time that helps me date a few hats, but they only give a date range on the logo, not the actual hat itself. Sooooooo… since I can only see the logo and not the bill I’m in a bit of a state of confusion. Now, the reason why I know it’s post-2000 is because the Lake Elsinore Storm are a class-A California League club, and from 1999-2000 I saw their hats 10-12 times a season while doing my bat boy duties for the Bakersfield Blaze. For both of those years the team wore the red-billed caps, which I also own. Not to brag or anything.

Keeping with the theme I have decided to roll with the time frame of 2001-present, as that has been the time that the club has been the affiliate of the San Diego Padres; not to mention my post-bat boy days with the Blaze when they were still an affiliate of the Anaheim Angles.

I’ve been a huge fan of this hat since the first time I saw it in 1999. If you grew up in the 1990s you night remember a clothing brand called No Fear, which had a very similar logo. Like Stussy and Billabong, No Fear was pretty much the coolest thing you could wear outside of a “BO KNOWS” Nike t-shirt. But to be honest, I don’t really like to wear it that often. Nothing personal, it’s just an odd-looking hat when you put it on and look at yourself in the mirror. So, I wear it rarely and prefer the look of it on my wall with all of my other hats.

#15- You can pretty much chalk this one up under the “biggest mistakes in franchise history” list. Back in 2006 the Padres drafted a solid third baseman in the ninth round from the University of Alabama. In 2007 this kid made the 2007 All-Star team with the Storm and was the second ranked prospect in the Padres organization; however, he was traded to the St. Louis Cardinals before the 2008 in exchange for Jim Edmonds. Yes, David Freese suited up for the Storm for one season and did a pretty stellar job for them going .302/17/96 in 128 games. Needless to say, Freese jumped to AAA in 2008 and then made his MLB debut for the Cards in 2009. But before he was the 2011 World Series hero as he’s known as today, he was merely little Davey in Lake Elsinore, California. I made the “little Davey” part up.

#22- This cat was so awesome that the Storm retired his jersey at the start of the 2008 season, despite only playing one season for them in 2001. It’s kind of funny to compare Jake Peavy’s numbers in 2007 for the Padres with his numbers with the Storm back in ’01. 2007- Peavy won the NL Cy Young and the pitching Triple Crown with 19 wins, a 2.54 ERA and 240 strikeouts. He also led the League with a 1.061 WHIP. 2001- Peavy wasn’t even the best pitcher on the team by a long shot. He went 7-5 with a 3.08 ERA and 144 strikeouts. Pitchers Andy Shibilo and Chris Rojas both won 10 games for the Storm that season; however, both players never made it past AAA. It’s kind of amazing to look at. Both of those pitchers were ranked at least 40 places higher on the prospect chart than Peavy, but it just goes to show that some guys have the stuff while others don’t. I tip my cap to you Peavy… but I really hate seeing you with the White Sox. (Sad face)