Game Time! : Fans in Noon-Hour Stretch to See Angels on TV

Andy Powers couldn’t sit still Wednesday. Between bites of a beef sandwich and sips from a soda, he watched a giant TV screen showing the Angels-Boston Red Sox playoff game while he sat in a neighborhood bar.

“I usually brown-bag it for lunch and stay at the office,” he said. “But today. . . .” His voice trailed off as an Angel rundown between second and third base ended in a Boston out.

“Jeez, get ‘em, GET ‘EM. GOOD!” he exclaimed, joining others yelling loudly inside the Huddle in Costa Mesa.

Baseball fans across Orange County spent the noon hour Wednesday craning their necks at TV screens, large and small, to see the second playoff game between their home team and the Red Sox.

Lured by balloons, fresh pretzels, and a chance to sit elbow-to-elbow with other die-hard fans, many, like Powers, a purchasing officer for a development firm, had simply notified the office that they were into an “extended” lunch.

Powers and most Angel fans predicted that if the Angels, his favorite team, could win Wednesday, they would sweep the Red Sox.

Instead, Boston handed the Angels a 9-2 defeat.

Four men seated next to Powers, spent their time nursing beers and ribbing Jim Lavoie, the only Boston fan in the bunch about Tuesday night’s Angel victory.

“Hey, Jim, who won last night? The Angels right?” they said, almost in unison.

Lavoie, who moved to Southern California from the Boston area 15 years ago, has refused to adopt the Angels as his team, insisting on remaining a Red Sox supporter.

“But after last night’s game, I felt like I had to take a knife to myself,” he said Wednesday. “I don’t think one game for the Angels means the end of the series.”

A more sedate group, attired in business suits, assembled before a TV in the lobby bar at the Irvine Marriott.

Instead of peanut shells on linoleum, baseball aficionados, like Robert Heinz of Anaheim, walked on marbled floors and watched the game from plush seats with bronze accents.

Heinz, who had attended a sales seminar, said he has watched or listened to Angel broadcasts since the team’s early beginnings.

“Usually, I’m at home watching in front of my TV or listening with an earplug hooked to a radio. I’m a big fan,” Heinz said.

Streamers and Balloons

At the Catch, a bar and grill next to Anaheim Stadium, about 45 patrons mingled amid the play-by-play action on three TV sets, under streamers and balloons colored in Angel red and blue.

With action already under way in the sixth inning, Mike Hughes, owner of an Anaheim construction company, looked at his wristwatch at about 2 p.m. and said: “I’ve been in here since 11:30 a.m. I usually leave at this time, but I’m not going.”

“It’s OK; I’ve got my wife with me,” he said, introducing his wife, Donna, to a reporter.

Hughes pointed to a small, two-inch television that he said he intends to take to a dinner party Saturday. His dinner hosts plan to play a popular game where the guests are murdered and clues are given to catch the murderer, he said. As the eyes of his wife rolled skyward, Hughes began making new plans out loud: “Let’s see I could get killed early to watch the game.”

Both sat at a large table put in by management to handle extra customers. At one end, car dealers sat with cement contractors, who sat next to housewives. All had some item--a bumper sticker, a decal, anything with an Angel insignia.

‘He’s Got Muscles’

Michael Reichman, a plucky wholesaler in the plumbing industry, whispered that he had adopted the Red Sox because he was originally from the East Coast.

“I think the Angels are chicken because they can’t hit in a big game. They’ve never really been tested. But just don’t tell Brian Downing that because the guy’s tough; he’s got muscles.”

Reichman’s companion, Gordon Reel, admitted that he wasn’t a baseball fan. Pointing at Reel, Reichman said, “He just likes to look at the Angels’ wives on the TV screen.”

Others inside the bar who had punched time clocks realized it was time to leave and go back to work. But not all got up to leave. Two men insisted they weren’t really there. “Naw, we’re on a secret mission.” said one, who later identified himself as Drew Barnett from Orange.

“OK, look,” said Barnett’s friend, Mark Parrish, “let’s just say we’re on an extended lunch, OK?”