Angels’ Big Need: Someone Who Can Slam the Door Shut

He is usually big, cold-blooded, ugly and mad. He has a beard or a scruffy mustache and a tough-guy nickname-- Monster or Vulture or Goose.

He lives in a dark corner of the bullpen. He grunts and glowers, he throws from weird angles. He throws pitches that either do funny tricks or sizzle right on past the hitter.

He is the short-relief superstar.

The door slammer.

In a movie, this guy would be played by Clint Eastwood or Charles Bronson.

Just about every real good team has one.

The Oakland A’s have a fellow named Jay Howell, who is big and throws hard. Wednesday afternoon, Howell got his sixth save by striking out Angels Dick Schofield and Jerry Narron in the bottom of the ninth.

The Angels don’t have a Bruce Sutter or a Goose Gossage. Not even a Jay Howell.

The front office ran out of money in its free-agent superstar budget just before Gossage and then Sutter came up for public auction, and about the time Don Aase became a free agent.

Too bad.

The Angels’ bullpen, going into Wednesday’s game, had allowed 30 earned runs in 31 innings, and that’s despite some nice work by Donnie Moore.

The starting pitchers had allowed 35 earned runs in 94 innings.

Reggie Jackson can tell you how useful it is to have a tough-guy door slammer. For eight years in Oakland, Reggie played behind Rollie Fingers. For four years in New York, he played behind Goose Gossage.

“For 12 years, I played seven-inning games,” Jackson said. “When those guys stood up and warmed up, the game was over.”

Jackson rates Gossage and Fingers 1-2 on his list of intimidating relief pitchers.

“Fingers was an intimidator because he had tremendous stuff and great command,” Jackson said.

“Goose was the most intimidating of all. He had the size and the motion, the killer instinct and the attitude. His attitude was just the way he looked.”

Which is to say, mean and mad.

“Another guy who was intimidating was Terry Forster,” Jackson said. “Guys like Al Hrabosky tried to intimidate you. Guys like Gossage and Forster didn’t try to intimidate you, they intimidated you.

“They were gonna stick the bat up your nose,” Reggie said, but he didn’t say nose.

Few pitchers have that supreme confidence, that smug superiority.

“The first year or two, Steve Howe (Dodgers), he had a presence about himself,” Jackson said. “That’s gonna be the toughest thing for him to get back. When I faced him in the World Series, he just believed he was gonna get you out, no matter who you are.”

Dusty Baker, now making his debut swing around the American League with the A’s, agreed with Jackson on Howe.

“He had that arrogance,” Baker said. “He knew he could get hitters out. I like to see that in young guys. I remember reading a story about (former big league outfielder) Tommie Agee. He said ‘The hardest part of being in the big leagues is feeling you belong in the big leagues.’ ”

Baker, who is trying to prove that he still belongs, got to Angel reliever Doug Corbett for a three-run homer Wednesday night.

The toughest relief pitcher in Baker’s book?

“I can’t tell you,” Baker said. “He’s still pitching and I don’t want him to know.”

Pause.

“Hell, I ain’t ashamed,” Dusty said. “I’m gonna get him before it’s over with. Rollie Fingers. He’s the toughest on me. Then Goose.

“Nobody intimidates me, but Fingers, it seems like he’s in my head, you know? I’ll be looking for one thing, he’ll throw another.”

Whether they intimidate you, outguess you or simply strike you out, the door slammers, the half dozen or so best--Sutter, Gossage, Jesse Orosco, Dan Quisenberry, Willie Hernandez--are extremely hot properties. They are entertaining performers, and the teams they pitch for tend to win a lot.

The door slammer is the Angels’ missing link to a pennant.

They could have had Gossage, or Sutter, for a price. They could have kept Aase.

But no-o-o-o-o.

Wins slip away in the late innings. There’s nobody to slam the door. The Angel players, a lot of them, privately seethe when they think of what might have been, if only the front office had popped for one more big-money player.

Jackson, who was only discussing relief pitchers in general, not criticizing the Angels’ bullpen, remembered the good old days.

“I saw Goose strike out the side in the ninth inning on nine pitches two or three times,” he said, reverently.

“In fact, this is the first team I’ve been on that didn’t have great relief pitching.”

It’s also the first team he’s been on that isn’t a baseball dynasty.

Said Baker: “Nowadays, a good reliever or two makes all the difference in the world.”

In Anaheim, it’s the good reliever or two the Angels don’t have who are making all the difference in the world.